Earth Hour: the Majesty of Failure

All those darkened buildings, all that hype about switching off to save the planet! How successful is the tidal wave of support demonstrating our commitment to showing an example to the world?

The numbers are in. According to the electricity market operator, the reduction in usage for Earth Hour across the eastern and southern states was two per cent in 2012. That’s down from the dizzy heights of 3.6 per cent in 2008. The reduction over the course of the day itself was 0.08 per cent.

Here is the data by state.

Reduction in electricity consumption during Earth Hour

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

QLD

3.5%

1.1%

2.5%

1.2%

0.5%

NSW

3.7%

1.9%

3.1%

2.9%

3.1%

VIC

3.7%

1.1%

2.2%

1.7%

2.0%

SA

3.3%

1.6%

2.8%

3.0%

1.5%

TAS

3.7%

1.4%

1.2%

2.5%

2.4%

NEM Total

3.6%

1.4%

2.6%

2.1%

2.0%

Total for day

QLD

0.15%

0.04%

0.11%

0.05%

0.02%

NSW

0.16%

0.08%

0.13%

0.12%

0.13%

VIC

0.15%

0.05%

0.09%

0.07%

0.08%

SA

0.14%

0.07%

0.12%

0.13%

0.06%

TAS

0.16%

0.06%

0.05%

0.10%

0.10%

NEM Total

0.15%

0.06%

0.11%

0.09%

0.08%

Divide that by 365 to get the percentage of electricity saved in a year.

Earth Hour is the ultimate in symbolic posturing, the purpose of which is to confirm the self-assessed moral superiority of those participating in it. It is directed at an issue, human induced global warming, that is becoming increasingly discredited in scientific circles and is harnessed to a solution, self-denial of energy use, where the Green Pharisees are becoming less fervent.

It is a political group formed by affirmative action and designed to answer the question it was set up for. It is the ultimate example of never commissioning a report without first knowing the answer to the question.

Their ‘summary for policymakers’ often contradicts the actual report, and is released in advance so that nobody bothers reading the report and realising they conflict.

Their crown jewel – the Michael Mann hockeystick – has been discredited as junk statistics. They have offered no retraction, no apology, and instead will just quietly omit it from the next version.

Their review process excludes divergent opinions and section authors are free to include their own work to the exclusion of others whenever they see fit.

When it was pointed out to them the conflicts of interest and terrible review processes, they ignored the advice and said they’d look at it sometime in the future.

As a report and organisation, it’s hopelessly compromised and a running joke to anyone who isn’t involved. Sure, there’s some good science between the covers in the same way there’s some probably good investigation done in the FWA HSU report.

Is the point to become “aware” that it’s dark without electricity or that if you wish to become an animal all you need to do is follow the “I don’t really live in a modern city” denialist handbook. Other examples of which are “everywhere but my street should be heavilly forested” and “the third world should have expensive unreliable power to help them develop”.

Gab, it is embarrassing and circular that the Right (as currently constituted here and in the US) both actively misrepresents the state of science and then celebrates that it has had some degree of success with this with the public, as if that reinforces the accuracy of their initial misinformation.

kelly: climate scientists are not in a giant panic over noise in the general trend upwards in warmth on the planet. A brief summary of why is at this recent Skeptical Science post, which a few people will now denounce as a propaganda site that you should not view.

Steve there is very strong evidence that there are strong dampening effects. The fact that the strength of the suns rays in Brisbane increase about 120% from the low point to the high point during the year but temperature only increases about 5% or a maximum of say 6% using the daily mean temperature suggests to me there are very strong dampening effects. This is not scientific proof as my brother who does actually have scientific qualifications says but it is very strong anecdotal evidence.

Biota SfB demonstrates only dogmatic beligerance and a refusal to acknowledge he’s wrong, faith indicates a certain generosity and goodwill to accept others points of view he seems to be lacking on this topic, you know, in a very “un”progressive fashion.

Steve
It is simple more than double the energy and you only get 5% temp change. What makes the infrared energy from CO2 or CH4 so special that a 1% change in energy will result in major temperature changes?

cohenite: the Spencer & Braswell work has been the subject of much criticism, as you know, and has not been received by the mainstream science as anything like a convincing proof that the Earth’s temperature record has all been about clouds, and the CO2 swings are just a co-incidence.

SfB demonstrates only dogmatic beligerance and a refusal to acknowledge he’s wrong, faith indicates a certain generosity and goodwill to accept others points of view he seems to be lacking on this topic,

The faith runs mainly in one direction on this blog, Simon, and it is simply against what mainstream science says.

As with anti-vaccination people, one hopes that continually pointing out to them that their minority take on matters has actually been taken into account by the mainstream, and dismissed on good grounds, might make one or two readers actually re-assess what the mainstream is saying and loosen their faith in their own prior judgement and the authority of the minority in whom they place their faith.

It’s probably a forlorn hope, I know, but I don’t see why the Right wing misinformation campaign should be allowed to go unchallenged.

Quite true on anti-vaccination, Fleeced. Which makes it all the more distressing that a large slab of the Right has decided to follow them into anti-science on one particular issue which has even greater long term significance for long term humanity.

A lot of what they said was clearly misrepresented by skeptics who are acting on ideological grounds and showing no objectivity at all when they run propaganda wars.

In 2008, Flannery said: “The water problem is so severe for Adelaide that it may run out of water by early 2009.”

“In Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane, water supplies are so low they need desalinated water urgently, possibly in as little as 18 months.”

“There are hot rocks in South Australia that potentially have enough embedded energy in them to run Australia’s economy for the best part of a century,” he said.

“The technology to extract that energy and turn it into electricity is relatively straightforward.”

Flannery repeatedly promoted this “straightforward” technology, and in 2009, the Rudd government awarded $90 million to Geodynamics to build a geothermal power plant in the Cooper Basin, the very area Flannery recommended. Coincidentally, Flannery has for years been a Geodynamics shareholder, a vested interest he sometimes declares.

Time to check on how that business tip went. Answer: erk.

The technology Flannery said was “relatively straighforward” wasn’t.

NASA’s Warmist James Hansen says skeptics guilty of ‘crimes against humanity and nature’

Thanks for drawing the comparison to immunization Steve, what is the statistical facts about who immunizes and who does not?

In 2011, 92.9 per cent of children in NSW had been fully immunised by 2 years of age compared to 96.2 per cent of children in Australia (Medicare, 2011)…

In 2010, the proportion of Aboriginal children that had been immunised by two years of age was similar to non-Aboriginal children in NSW (91.9% and 92.4%). Table A4.10

Although overall immunisation rates of 2 year old children are high, the proportion varies by geographic area. The Hunter (95.1%) and Murrumbidgee (94.1%) areas of NSW had the highest proportion of children immunised. The Richmond-Tweed area did not reach the 90 per cent target (87.2%) due to the high rate of conscientious objection to vaccination in that area (Figure 3). Table A4.11

Token: so you’ve shown that you don’t have to be a hippy to be skeptical of vaccination.

Same as you can be a geologist, engineer or physicist and be rabidly skeptical of climate climate change.

The way ideology has influenced the climate science wars is not a simple issue: I have said before that there are a lot of psychology papers in the making examining the question of how so many people came to so vigorously believe the minority view of this science question.

handjive: I am talking about the minority view within science attracting a disproportionate following amongst the general public.

Given the very large number of scientific bodies that have issued statements supportive of the “mainstream” view that greenhouse gases are causing temperature increases and action should be taken to limit them, there is no serious argument that what you and the majority of Catallaxy contributors follow is very much a minority view within science.

the Spencer & Braswell work has been the subject of much criticism, as you know, and has not been received by the mainstream science as anything like a convincing proof that the Earth’s temperature record has all been about clouds, and the CO2 swings are just a co-incidence.

That is just so fucking stupid; fair dinkum, alarmists would make more sense if they vomited their opinions.

This idea of a large number of bodies is an invention of a few of the core involved in pushing the idea that capitalism is destroying the planet and actively soliciting for support from unrelated scientists. Read the EA emails FFS.

It’s an attractive idea to the gullible bleeding hearts which has been pushed around for a couple of hundred years and unfortunately will still be here in another couple of hundred thousand years. The logic is deceptively simple, finite resources, infinite growth. Think wall-e. Clearly something has to give. Well the logic is flawed, the resources are so large and in any essence matter is not destroyed by use that we can still have this argument in a couple of hundred thousand years.

and please stop quoting crapypedia for facts about AGW, its self-anointed “editors” er gatekeepers are not unbiased.

Steve you mean like Galileo and Einstein, the minority of scientists supported them too mate. Only one needs to be right regardless of how many others form a consensus, if it’s wrong they just wear the embarrassment. People like you kept cholera going for decades longer than it should.
BTW empirical (you know real measurable science) severely contradicts all (absolutely all) theories and models pushed by warmies to the point where even the IPCC is downgrading it’s paranoid forecasts. A sham is a sham mate even when sold to you by people you trust with sympathetic backgrounds. Just show us all where the CO2 emissions have warmed the world outside of standard variation and remove all historical events that were obviously not caused by CO2 and see if there is any point to your argument left.

Whoops sorry Steve that came out a bit harshly, brevity can do that. I meant it’s that attitude of your’s that you share with many others in the medico scientific fraternity that won’t allow for any other opinion or idea to be entertained to the point where you will see only evidence that supports your ideal scenario to the exclusion of all others. Science is open mindedness exemplified not adherence to an idea or standard you think or desire to be correct because it then justifies your political and emotional prejudices. Obviously your not to blame for cholera but those that refused to believe that it was water born not in the vapours have a lot in common with the scientific clique that refuse to acknowledge that their models, forecasts and theories have not been born out by the evidence garnered through observable facts. As the bard said “There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophy”.

Simon, CO2 is not the only forcing. That other things have caused bursts of warming (or cooling) does not mean that CO2 won’t warm.

Obviously, not every dissenting scientist can claim the mantle of a Galileo who is just waiting to be vindicated. The weight of evidence is strongly against the current, very small, crop of dissenters in the climate science field.

You can have millions of arguments saying CO2 or plant food is bad, but you only need one argument to prove it wrong. E.g all swans are white, no one﻿ has ever seen a swan that is not white. you only need one black swan to prove this wrong. Science is not democracy, and it dose not matter if all the scientist in the world agree on a topic it only take one sound argument to prove them all wrong. There is no science that is settled nor is the science ever in and those who claim so are devoid of a mind that could understand science. AGW will go down as one of the biggest lies to mankind, along side the one about the existence of God

It is difficult to understand how people like Steve can claim dissenting voices to be a (trivial) minority. There is a battle of scientific signatures and the Oregan Petition has some 31,000. This says,

‘There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.’

Many have cast doubts on the scientific credentials of some of these but the same can be said of the signatories on the other side, many of whom turn out to be environmental activists. It might justly be claimed that it is the depth of expertise not numbers that really matter. There are many highly credentialled skeptics including several Australians. Significantly, the most prominent global expert, Richard Lindzen, is firmly in the skeptics.

Those publically announcing their skepticism pay the price in terms of loss of government research funding.

It is difficult to understand how people like Steve can claim dissenting voices to be a (trivial) minority. There is a battle of scientific signatures and the Oregan Petition has some 31,000.

If any of those signatories are older than 60yo then Steve automatically discounts them as too old to make sensible comment. (But for AGW advocates the rule is, of course, different). That’s the level of prejudice and stupidity we have to deal with here.

Funny you should mention age in the context of the Oregon Petition, Gab. I see that Frederick Seitz, who wrote the covering letter inviting people to sign the petition (and which included a fake article that looked like it was from a proper journal, when it wasn’t) was born in 1911.

It looks as if the first round of the petition was in 1999, but it did the circuit again in 2007.

Yes, Gab: it appears the petition was endorsed by a 88 year old right wing warrior with questionable ties to the tobacco industry.

Of course, there have been many criticisms of the petition exercise, as the Wiki article on it notes, including signatories who have reversed their view since, or died.

Of course, there have been many criticisms of the petition exercise, as the Wiki article on it notes, including signatories who have reversed their view since, or died.

You swine you didn’t even know what “ecology” Fenner worked in yet you tried to use his opinion as a foil. You fool I was only pointing out your ageism was ridiculous (not as ridiculous as you confusing microbiological ecology with riparian ecology etc).

Shame on you. I hope your kids don’t desert you when you need them. May you live in interesting times.

Fifteen years of temperatures trending lower Steve. Kinda hard to explain if the IPCC’s sensitivity is to be believed. Did I ever tell you I independently cross checked 2XCO2 and found a value of 0.694 C? No one has seen error with this calc, a lot of your colleagues in belief have tried. Be my guest. S&B 2009 comes in at 0.6 C, L&C 2011 comes in at 0.7 C.

And before you get all trendy there are other types of regression than good ole linear.

Stepford, you backwater redneck. This is what the concluding para in your link contains.

There is nothing in RSL’s talk to cast doubt on the existence of this risk. It is up to policy makers, not scientists, to decide whether governments should take concerted mitigating action to try to reduce this risk. On this we do not comment.

James Hansen:

Hansen went on to say: “CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term
consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for
high crimes against humanity and nature.”

Dr. RK Pachauri, Chancellor, TERI University had a special video-recorded message for the participants encouraging them to be the torch bearers of the green campaign. [bold in the original, italics added]

This isn’t a matter of putting words into anyone’s mouth. It isn’t a matter of interpretation.

This press release was issued by an educational institution that Pachauri heads. It reveals that, during his day job, Pachauri encourages people to be green torch bearers.

Since this man also chairs the IPCC – a body that is supposed to be impartial with respect to environmental questions – this is totally improper.

Re the credibility of Dr Pachauri and the IPCC, be sure to catch up with at least one critique of the modus operandi of that great organization. For people new to the Cat who did not see the original series of posts.

Steve – No I am not retired. I am an R&D chemist who amongst many things does statistical and iterative modelling. I have a peer reviewed paper in this field plus another 50 odd other publications.

Indeed I had to check the veracity of the IPCC’s science because in 2006 I was thinking of entering the climate science field myself, with a couple of project ideas which I believe would have attracted very reasonable funding. Save the world and all that y’know. But the IPCC science wasn’t science and I’d have been hypocritical to continue, so I went back to my normal work.

I started the plot in April 1997 because it is presently April 2012. 15 years. I do like to be precise as well as accurate.

And Steve, about this cherry picking thing. Is 250 years of data good enough for you?

If needed I could extend the 2XCO2 calc back to the start of the CET dataset, but the best SCL dataset only goes back to 1759 and the previous dataset is less certain. Also the model gets messy before that time due to the Maunder Minimum.

Sorry Steve, you got me going by mentioning climate sensitivity and being down on Richard Lindzen.

I’ve read L&C 2011 several times and I can’t see anything wrong with it other than it measuring short term response to forcing (necessitated by the satellite measurement method), whereas I wanted to see if that also held good over a longer timebase. As far as I can see it does, but I’m not going to submit a paper as the field is so politicised it would be a pain. Life’s too short. I’ve better things to do than fight a guerilla war with reviewers.

Steve – No I am not retired. I am an R&D chemist who amongst many things does statistical and iterative modelling. I have a peer reviewed paper in this field plus another 50 odd other publications.

Bruce, that’s all fine but do you have any experience that is relevant to climate science? Have you pretended that a greenpeace press release was a refereed paper? Have you cherry picked data to make your bogus scare look real? Have you flown around the world to cocktail parties, to try to ban other people from flying? Do you drive a Prius? Is your own environmental footprint bigger than everyone else but do you have most of the world’s proven reserves of sanctimony? If you can’t answer yes to all of these questions, you’re not a climate scientist.

There are probably a great many people – I humbly present myself as an example – who leave climate science to the professionals, take heed of their work, reduce their energy use accordingly in sensible ways on a daily basis, but can still see Earth Hour for the feelgood wankfest hour of sitting bored in the dark that it is.

I’d hesitate to claim its low takeup as a sign of anything much.

It also – IMNPHO – runs the risk of creating genuine feelgood “I did my bit”-ism among those who otherwise do fuck all to reduce their energy consumption. Like people who drive alone in their 4wd to the shops, then use a couple of green bags and think they’re making a difference.

It also – IMNPHO – runs the risk of creating genuine feelgood “I did my bit”-ism among those who otherwise do fuck all to reduce their energy consumption. Like people who drive alone in their 4wd to the shops, then use a couple of green bags and think they’re making a difference.

Leaving aside the “my acronym is bigger than yours” (IMNPHO), I get the impression that FDB is a deeper cover operative than SfB, but essentially on the same crusade.
We’ve seen what the professionals have come up with, and the IPCC is a travesty. Why someone should bother to ” take heed of their work, reduce their energy use accordingly in sensible ways on a daily basis” after all the bullsh*t that’s been spouted on AGW, I really can’t say.

It always amuses how Gab plays up my necessary departures from this blog, which do happen intermittently, as “running away”.

So, Bruce is not retired and busy in his shed proving he’s seen through climate science to see the truth. Well, I suppose congratulations are due for not being within the normal cohort for rabid private researchers who have disproved the consensus view as reflected in the IPCC.

But given your anonymity, and that we are used to claims from the likes of Monckton that he has not only seen the climate sensitivity mistakes that all others have made, but also found a cure a cancer, excuse me while I remain skeptical that your private jottings have done anything to meaningfully contribute to a proper assessment of climate science.

Oh – and I pretty much agree with FDB (and Moran) and agree that Earth Hour is just symbolic posturing.

People who are into fairly useless posturing are, however, presently far less dangerous than those who pretend there is nothing at all to worry about.

Gab, suspecting that someone who thinks they have come up with a more accurate figure than the IPCC on climate sensitivity is a retired male with too much time on his hands busy researching on his laptop in his shed is not an insult.

Steve – I have taken no offense, but your insinuations are to your discredit.

1. You may have directed at Gab this:

But given your anonymity…

Or you may have directed it at me. On the latter assumption I will say that I fear for loss of employment as well as of crazies turning up on my doorstep as a result of my opinions, which are based on data and the interpretation of it. If you do not like my interpretation, I repeat my offer: say why, I will respond with peer reviewed citations (and with Sinc’s forbearance, links).

2. You just again implied that I’m

“a retired male with too much time on his hands busy researching on his laptop in his shed”

when I said that I am employed. You may wish to ask the owners of this blog for veracity of what I say, as I provide my name in my email address, and Google is quite able to pick my CV from out of the interwebs.

So, Steve, man up or shut up. I have provided a good chunk of science showing the IPCC’s view of climate sensitivity is a load of rubbish. Respond, sir. I will add a further indictment of IPCC’s woeful modelling – having done much multiple regression work in the past I can say that they leave out two statistically significant variables from what are effectively regression models (the GCM’s that is) since they fit their performance to the training period, usually the 20thC. Anyone who knows MR knows if you do this the algorithm incorrectly assigns variance to whatever covarying variable left…in this case CO2. Ocean cycles are responsible for about 1/3 of the temperature ‘rise’ in the 20thC because of the start and end dates. Solar magnetism as quantified by pSCL accounts, with TSI, for 1/2 of temperature rise in the 20thC. Or do you not believe the most prestigious scientist in India Prof U.R.Rao, past head of thier space program and GCR scientist? That leaves at most 1/6th for CO2, which fits neatly with Linzen’s value. And illustrates why IPCC’s values for 2XCO2 are 6 times too high.

Ante up, Steve. You have the internet at your behest. I’m sure John Cook would be happy to assist you with citations. Be warned, I have shredded posts by both SkS and RC many times. Propaganda is easier to shred than true science.

Bruce, you’re sounding more than a tad “Monckton” to me, in the self aggrandisement stakes.

Regardless of your employment status (and I wasn’t doubting it) I don’t quite follow: have you published your convincing proofs anonymously somewhere on the internet?

Or sent them off to Judith Curry, MacIntyre, Jonova, or anyone else interested in such material who could disseminate it wider?

Because scientists of any variety who scoff that they disproved a widely accepted body of work, but haven’t had it looked at carefully by other scientists/mathematicians; well, skepticism of such claims is natural.

Steve – Why do you think I, who am not paid by anyone to do climate science should exert myself and publish original research in a journal when all I would get out of it is a blizzard of flames from the activists who say they are scientists? I can do less work for more money in my own field, while watching the ALP immolate itself by believing charlatans. And eating metaphorical popcorn.

If you were attentive you will have looked at the links I provided upthread. One link gives the model I developed to answer my 2006 question (ie “is IPCC value for 2XCO2 right?”; answer not within cooee), which is based on this paper plus this paper and the graph link I also gave. You have all the data there to repeat the calculation, as can anyone who wishes to check the conclusions. No one has found error in it so far. You may try if you like.

I frequently post at Jo’s blog, indeed it was to answer one of your colleagues that I put it up on Flickr.

Bruce, you’re sounding more than a tad “Monckton” to me, in the self aggrandisement stakes.

You disrespectful, stupid arsewipe.

You are just a liar. You will find any character attack at the ready. You do not have the minerals or the smarts to engage in a friendly debate. People are too old, too much like someone else – despite basically being at Professor level. You will throw people under the bus for a variety of stupid personal reasons.

You’re just a misanthropic little shit who wants to make everyone else worse off.

dot, it’s hilarious that you, as one of the most abusive, insulting and know-it-all regular commenters here, should be ticking me off for an alleged lack of civility on a thread.

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